Child dies jumping off a roof

A nine-year-old has died from jumping off a roof allegedly trying to imitate his favourite WWE star Jeff Hardy.

Damori Miles made a parachute out of string and plastic bag and attempted Hardy's signature 'swanton bomb' finishing move.

According to his friend Shakar, 11, Damori had seen this type of stunt when playing the Smackdown vs Raw video game.

Whilst my condolences go out to his family I have never seen Jeff Hardy perform a swanton bomb from a roof with a parachute on.

To link the WWE with this death seems slightly unfortunate for Vince McMahon and I'm sure fingers will be pointing his way.

His 11-year-old friend confirmed that he was attempting to copy Hardy and I think this source is a little unreliable when considering there are so many other games, films and television programmes that feature dangerous actions.

Young children need supervision and guidance when following far-fetched programmes that appear to be real.

If a parent doesn't have an interest in what their child is doing they cannot know what they are being influenced by.

How and why this lad was inspired to jump off a building puzzles me because this would suggest he had no idea of the difference between fantasy and reality.

In this day and age children are bombarded with far more unsuitable material for their age than they have been in the past.

For some it would be harmless but for others who are more easily lead, it is dangerous because their mind isn't developed enough to understand you can't do certain things in real life.

It really depends on the individual and their parental back up.

For example when I was nine I thought everything about wrestling was real and I'm sure this kid was no different.

I was guilty of doing moves on my brother and hurting him and vice versa but we were never tempted to do anything really silly.

I would say in general the WWE is far more child friendly than ten years ago and really believe that this child's actions were caused by something else.

Read the full story here.

Another former wrestler dies

The glitz and glamour of being a professional wrestler is seriously put into perspective when you count up how many ex-stars have died.

Andrew 'Test' Martin, 33, is the latest in a long line to have passed away and the profession is certainly looking more and more like a death trap.

The cause is currently unknown but by looking at the physique of Martin you would certainly suspect steroid use had something to do with it.

He had recently spoken on his Myspace page comparing the use of them to a facelift or botox.

This will surely play on the minds of many young men who are looking to get into the business as it looks like once you join the wrestling circuit, its tough to break out of and in time heath problems arise.

I can sympathise with the men that turn to steroids though as it must be extremely difficult to be on the road performing for 300 days a year.

It seems the use of them is simply what a wrestler is nurtured into due to the demands of the schedule and otherwise they wouldn't be able please all their fans around the world.

There was a wrestler I watched from the years of 1993-95 called Lex Luger and had an all American feel good gimmick. Now age 50 he walks with a zimmer frame and his wife died from a drugs overdose in 2003. She mixed anabolic steroids and two other pain relieving drugs with vodka.